LIBER
LIBER (
βίβλος,
βιβλίον), a book. But it must be recollected that
these words in Greek and Latin until a very late period mean a book in the
form of a roll, as will be explained below, and that the modern book shape
was used only for the codex (in Greek,
τεῦχος see
CODEX),
and not for literary publications. The name
liber itself is either a misconception or a relic of antiquity
applied to something different. It means “rind” or
“bast;” but there seems no doubt that not the rind of the
papyrus, but the pith (which Cassiodorus rightly gives as
medullae), was used to make paper (
charta). The true
liber or bast is
thought to have been used in pre-historic times for writing in some form, as
were also leaves of trees (
Plin. Nat.
13.69); but. this has nothing to do with the material of
charta; nor has the substance
philyra, which Pliny seems to apply wrongly in describing the
manufacture of paper. Philyra, as Pliny himself elsewhere (16.65) explains,
was the inner bark or skin of the lime-tree, which, as, it happens, was also
used for writing, though. not in the form of
charta (Ulpian,
Dig. 32,
52). It is unnecessary to go further here into this
point, which is fully discussed by Birt (
Antike Buchwesen, p.
229
sq.). The same view is adopted by Marquardt
(
Privatleben, 800) and, Blümner
(
Technologie, 1.309). Of the linen material for books
little need be said. It belonged to very early times among the Romans; for
the
Libri lintei are referred to by Livy not as
existing in his own time, but as mentioned by Licinius Macer (
Liv. 4.7,
13,
20,
23). They were not
books, but merely public records with lists of
magistrates, kept in the temple of Juno Moneta. Livy also speaks of a
Samnite ritual-book as a “liber vetus linteus” (10.38). In much
later times linen was used for note-books by Aurelian (Vopisc.
Aur. 1.7). The Egyptian papyrus of which paper (
charta) was made formed an article of trade before
the time of Herodotus (
5.68). He calls the plant
βύβλος or
βίβλος, but Theophrastus distinguishes
πάπυρος as the plant and
βίβλος as the pith, the true material of the paper. It was so
largely exported that Cassiodorus (
Ep. 11.38) speaks of
[p. 2.58]the abolition of the tax upon it by Theodoric as the
removal of an impediment to learning. The papyrus plant grows in swamps to a
height of ten feet or more, and paper was manufactured from it (principally
at Alexandria, but also at Rome) in the following manner (see Pliny,
13.77). The pith of the papyrus was cut into
strips called
schidae (or, in Festus,
inae); these strips were placed alongside one
another on a wetted board, and, if there was not glutinous property enough
in the papyrus, they were smeared with paste: upon them transversely was
placed a second layer forming a cross pattern or network: the whole was
pressed and beaten into a consistent form and smoothed down with an ivory
instrument (hence
charta dentata), or a shell
(
Mart. 15.209), forming a single page
(
pagina,
σελίς), which was called in its manufacture
plagula, because of the network pattern in
the initial stage (cp. the expressions “
texere chartam,”
ἤτρια βύβλων, &c.). Pliny (l.c.),
unless the reading is altered, seems to think that the Nile water itself
acted as a paste: this is in itself highly improbable, and we may more
safely conclude that the papyrus itself yielded the glutinous substance
when, as in Egypt, it was fresh, but when it was imported and dry the paste
was necessary, which Pliny describes as used at Rome. Pliny reckons nine
sorts or qualities of paper: (1) the best sort had once been called in Egypt
hieratica, because it was specially used
for sacred books, but in the Empire it was called
Augusta, and was 13
digiti
broad, and from a similar compliment the second quality was called
Livia, so that, as Pliny notes, the
hieratica was relegated to the third class; (4) the
amphitheatrica, so called because it was
manufactured near the amphitheatre at Alexandria, 9
digiti broad; (5) an improvement upon this by a Roman
Fannius, and therefore called
Fanniana, 10
digiti broad; (6 and 7)
Saitica and
Taeniotica (8
digiti), so called from the places of their manufacture in
Egypt; (8)
emporetica, used not for writing, but, as
the name suggests, for wrapping up parcels. Later in Claudius's reign came
the
Claudia, which was a foot broad, and was
regarded as an improvement, because it was thick enough for writing on both
sides, whereas the Augusta was thin and transparent, and could only take
writing on one side. Parchment (
membrana) was
also a common material for writing; but
 |
|
Ancient Writing Materials. (From a painting at
Herculaneum.)
|
the uses of
charta and
membrana were distinct until late in the Empire.
Skins of animals had been used for writing in very ancient times: in fact,
in Asia, among the Persians and, as is well known, among the Jews, it had
been what papyrus was to the Egyptians (
Diod.
11.32;
Hdt. 5.58; and see Birt, p. 49). It
is therefore not strictly correct of Varro (ap.
Plin. Nat. 13.70) to say that parchment for writing was an
invention of Eumenes II., king of Pergamum (about 180 B.C.), in consequence
of the jealousy of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who prohibited the exportation of
papyrus. (Jerome tells the same story of Attalus.) The true account seems to
be that great improvement in the preparation of
διφθέραι was introduced either by Eumenes or Attalus at
Pergamum, whence the term
pergamena, parchment,
inasmuch as formerly
διφθέραι were used
(like
charta) only on one side, and now they
were smoothed for writing on both sides, and in this improved form exported
to Rome. But it is important to notice that
charta was until long after the Augustan age exclusively used for
literary publications. Parchment was bound in the codex form (or book
shape), and used for account books, for wills, and for notes. In fact, it
competed rather with wax tablets than with paper. The
membrana in Horace,
Sat. 2.3, 2,
A. P. 389, is used for the rough copy of poems to be
altered and published later ( “delere licebit quod non
edideris” ); and the same purpose is served by the parchment in a
diptych stained yellow in
Juv. 7.24. For
books, i.e. literary publications, the codex was
used first by Christian writers, beginning with the codices of the sacred
writings; for other writings scarcely before the second half of the 3rd
century, and in general use not before the 5th century. Exceptions to this
appear in Martial,
14.188,
190,
192; but the
membrana there may only refer to the
wrapper, which enclosed the roll: cf.
Mart. 1.3,
3. Letters were written on wax tablets or on
paper, not on parchment. That the word
palimpsestus in
Cic. Fam. 7.1. 8
does not gainsay this, is shown by his use of
chartula in that passage.
The pages (
σελίδες,
paginae) having been prepared in the manner
described above, they were pasted together (
conglutinatae) to form a long roll; but sometimes the pages were
written first and pasted into a roll afterwards, for which purpose some
people kept
glutinatores (
Cic. Att. 4.4). The writing was in columns, so
that the lines of writing were parallel to the sides of the roll: on each
page there was a column, and there was a blank space between each column.
Down to the time of Caesar, however, it was the custom to write official
documents
transversa
charta; that is to say, across the whole
breadth of the roll, so that the lines of writing were at right angles to
the sides of the roll. This explains the passage in
Suet. Jul. 56. The shape and appearance of Greek and Roman books
will be understood from the following woodcut.
The roll was sometimes of considerable length. The Scholiasts indeed (quoted
by Birt, p. 444) speak of Thucydides and Homer being written each in one
long roll. The roll of Thucydides is estimated at about 578 pages, nearly
100 yards--surely an incredible length; and a Homer roll, 120 yards in
length, is said to have been in existence at Constantinople. But this was
certainly not the usual system, and the roll rarely exceeded 100 pages (cf.
Mart. 8.44), and was
[p. 2.59]usually much smaller. It was customary to divide a long work (
opus or
corpus) into
several books (
libri); each
liber being in one roll (
volumen; in Greek,
τομὸς or
κύλινδρος). Greek writers sometimes
called these
libri or divisions of a work
βίβλια, sometimes
λόγοι, and in the later Empire
συγγράμματα. Thus, in contrast to the huge roll of Homer,
said to have been at Constantinople, we have the papyrus of the 24th book of
the Iliad from Elephantine, so that the complete Iliad would have been in 24
rolls or volumes. The pages were numbered, or at any rate the total number
was usually put on the
titulus: even the total
number of verses, or of lines in a prose work, were sometimes written on it.
Thus Josephus reckons 60,000
στίχοι at the
end of his 20th book of Antiquities, and Justinian gives to the Digests
“centum quinquaginta paene milia versuum.” The price of the
book was in part estimated by this number, and Marquardt cites an edict of
Diocletian (C.
I. L. iii. p. 831) in which the payment of the
copyist was fixed at so much for every hundred lines.
The writing was usually only on one side of the paper. The other side in cast
books was utilised for schoolboys' exercises: “libelle inversa pueris
arande charta” (
Mart. 4.86), or as
scribbling paper (
Mart. 8.62). Both sides were,
however, sometimes used for the original work, and the books were then
called
opisthographi (
Plin. Ep. 3.5: see
Juv. 1.6, and
Mayor's note). Sometimes the writing was sponged out (as in a parchment
palimpsest) and the paper used over again. This is the point of the joke
made by Augustus, “Ajacem suum in
spongiam incidisse” (
Suet.
Aug. 82).
The roll was protected against worms by being smeared with cedar oil, which
gave the paper a yellow tinge (
Ov. Tr. 3.1,
13;
Mart. 3.2;
Hor.
A. P. 331): then the last leaf was pasted on to a thin
piece of wood called the
umbilicus or
ὄμφαλος (the
umbilicus is found also made of tightly-folded paper). Hence the
last page is called
eschatocollion (
Mart. 2.6); and the expression “ad umbilicum
adducere” means, to finish (cf. Hor.
Epod. 14, 8;
Mart. 4.89) = “ad cornua,”
Mart. 20.107. The edges (
frons) of the roll were carefully cut, and also smoothed with
pumice-stone, whence the book is “pumice mundus” (
Ov. Tr. 3.1,
13;
Mart. 1.67,
8.72; Catull. 22.8;
Tib. 3.1,
10). There is an amusing mistake in Isidore's
statement, “Circumcidi libros primum Siciliae increbuit, nam initio
pumicabantur,” where he has confused
sicilire,
“to
cut” (
sica), with Sicilia. His statement is adopted by some modern
writers, but there seems no reason to doubt that the book was both cut and
smoothed with pumice-stone. As a further decoration, the ends (
cornua) of the
umbilicus were sometimes gilded as far as they projected (
Mart. 8.61). The edges themselves (
frons) were also coloured (
nigra
frons,
Ov. Tr. 1.1,
8). A
strip of parchment on which the title or subject of the book, and sometimes
its number of pages or even lines, was written, was pasted on to the roll.
(In this sense “praetexat summa fastigia” = “praetexat
frontes.” ) This strip was called
titulus or
index, in Greek
σίττυβοι or
σίττυβαι (
Cic.
Att. 4.4). (Others spell the word
σίλλυβοι, but see Phot. and
Hesych.
sub voce and Marquardt's note,
Privatleben, 817.)
This
titulus or index was often painted a
bright colour, and perhaps the “lora rubra” (Catull. 22, 7)
have the same meaning (though Göll takes the words to stand for the
parchment case). Finally, a cover for the roll (
membrana,
διφθέρα) was made of parchment coloured red
or yellow, “Lutea sed niveum involvat membrana libellum” (Tib.
3.1, 9), which is called
purpurea toga, and
also
sindon (
Mart.
10.93;
11.1). If one work was in several
libri, they were tied in a bundle (
fasces, fasciculus,
Gel. 9.4, or
δέσμγ). So Aristot.
fr. 134:
δέσμας πάνυ πολλὰς δικανικῶν λόγων Ἰσοκρατείων
περιφέρεσθι ὑπὸ τῶν βιβλιοπωλῶν. The only other addition
to be noticed is, that occasionally the portrait of the author was placed on
the first page of the book (Senec.
de Tranq. An. 9;
Mart. 14.186). It is for the imaginative a
matter for speculation whether the portrait of Virgil in the Vatican edition
is the copy of an original.
In reading, the roll (
liber or
volumen) was held in both hands and unrolled with
one, while the other rolled it up: the unrolling was called
 |
|
Book held by a crowned Poet. (From a painting at
Herculaneum.)
|
evolvere, revolvere, or
volvere; going right through was called
explicare: rolling up again,
convolvere,
replicare, or
complicare (
Cic. Q. fr. 3.1, 5). So in
Mart. 4.82, “charta
plicetur” means, “let it remain
unread” ; “opus explicitum” (14.1) means “read all
through” (cf. “explicet volumen suum,”
Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 35,
101). In rolling it up tightly, it was convenient to do so by holding the
umbilicus with both hands while the first
page was pressed under the chin. This is the meaning of “quae trita
duro non inhorruit mento” (
Mart.
1.66; cf. 10.93) and
ἦ ρά σ᾽ ἀναγνοὺς
παῖς τις ἀναθλίψει πρὸς τὰ γενεῖα τιθείς, in the
Anthology. The above apparatus of a book is given completely by Martial
(
3.2):
Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus
Et frontis gemino decens honore
Pictis luxurieris umbilicis;
Et te purpura delicata velet Et cocco rubeat superbus index.
The multiplication of books at Rome began after the conquest and pacification
of Italy, but booksellers' shops were not known until the end of the
Republic. The earliest mention of such
[p. 2.60]shops is in
Cic. Q. Fr. 3.4, and
Phil. 2.9, 21; but they were then still uncommon, and we find Atticus
selling books for the copying of which he had a large number of slaves
(
Cic. Att. 2.4). Booksellers were called
librarii and also
bibliopolae (
Mart. 4.71,
&c.), and in Greek
βιβλιοκάπηλοι.
Horace gives us the name of the Sosii (
Ep. 1.20, 2;
A.
P. 345). Martial names several, and specifies Argiletum as the
booksellers' quarter (1.3, 117): there were also the
Vicus
Sandilarius (
Gel. 18.4) and the
Sigillaria (
Gel. 5.4). There were booksellers,
too, in the provincial towns, e. g. at Lugdunum (
Plin. Ep. 9.11; cf.
Hor. Ep.
1.20,
13), at Brundisium (
Gel. 9.4). As to the price, we have no very clear
information; but it would seem that a book was not necessarily, as regards
cost of production, very expensive, though it might from special
circumstances command a large price. Gellius (
2.3）
speaks of the 2nd Aeneid being bought for
viginti
aurei = nearly £18; but it was an antiquarian curiosity,
as being reputed (however unlikely that might be) Virgil's own copy: and as
a literary tradition, possibly untrue, it was said that Aristotle gave three
talents for an autograph MS. of Speusippus, and Plato nearly two for three
books of Philolaus (
Gel. 3.17). Such instances
merely show that book-fanciers lived then as now, and price was regulated by
fashion and rarity. Trustworthy copies of Ennius, for instance, were so rare
in the time of Gellius that one of undoubted authority was
hired for a large sum to decide a dispute as to the
reading “quadrupes
ecus” or
“quadrupes
eques” (
Gel. 17.5). That, on the other hand, the real cost
of production was not great, may be seen from the fact that Statius (
Stat. Silv. 4.9,
9) speaks of a book (possibly one of his own) in a neat purple cover
costing about fivepence: the first book of Martial, in the shop of Atrectus,
cost 5 denarii (
Mart. 1.117); but even that was
dear; for the bookseller Tryphon could sell it at a profit for two (
Mart. 13.3). The author's profit could be made (1)
by selling his original copy to a bookseller (Sen.
de Ben.
7.6; Suet.
de Gr. 8), (2) by selling copies made by his own
slaves: but in the absence of all legal protection, the gains so to be made
were very small, and the author who sought profit from his writing depended
mainly on the liberality of rich patrons. (See Friedländer, vol.
iv. p. 66-120, French translation; Birt, ch. vii.)
How early or to what extent booksellers existed at Athens is a matter of
dispute. It is not unreasonable (with Birt and Becker) to deduce from the
mention of
βιβλιογράφοι in Cratinus (Poll.
7.211) that they existed as early as 430 B.C. This name, for which
βιβλιοπώλης was afterwards used, would imply
that the first booksellers were copyists who both copied and sold books: and
though Boeckh thinks that the proverbial use of
λόγοισιν Ἑρυόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται, with Suidas's
explanation, implies the rarity of such a trade, even after Plato's time, we
have, on the other hand, the statement of Xenophon (
Xen. Anab. 7.5,
14) that books
were on sale even at Salmydessus; we have a book-market (
τὰ βιβλία) at Athens in the time of Eupolis
(Poll. 9.47); and we might conclude from
Aristoph. Frogs 1109,
βιβλίον τ᾽ ἔχων
ἕκαστος μανθάνει τὰ δέξια, that books were then easily to
be purchased: and the same may be inferred from the mention of the book
collector Eudemus in
Xen. Mem. 4.2 It is
indeed probable that the well-known passage in the Apology (26 D) is wrongly
adduced as an additional argument. When Socrates says that you can buy the
opinions of Anaxagoras at the theatre for one drachma, he does not mean, as
has often been imagined (even by Boeckh), that there was a bookstall there,
but simply that one drachma would procure admission to the dearest place
(
εἰ πάνν πολλοῦ) in the theatre,
where the doctrines of Anaxagoras might be heard in some play, perhaps, of
Euripides. That a book of Anaxagoras could be bought there or anywhere else
for a drachma is unlikely, since an inscription of the year 407 gives the
price of the paper alone as 1 drachma 2 obols a sheet (i. e. a single roll
which would serve for one small book). (
C. I. A. 1.324: see
Birt, p. 433.) Without this passage, however, there is enough for a fair
inference that some kind of book-market began at Athens and in some other
Greek towns in the latter part of the 5th century B.C. (See further on this
subject Birt,
Buchwesen, chap. ix.; Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 2.160; Boeckh, ed. Fränkel, 1.60: see
also art.
BIBLIOTHECA）
[
W.S] [
G.E.M]
